International Football History and Statistics

On this day in football history

• 1866 The FA introduced the concept of a crossbar into the game. Originally the line between the top of the two posts was denoted by a tape.
• 1922 Billy Poyntz scored all three goals for Leeds United in their win over Leicester City. It was his wedding day.
• 1928 Harry Johnson, Sheffield United centre-forward, became the first player to score a hat trick in a first team match between the two Sheffield clubs since they first played each other in 1890. The match was a FA Cup Fifth Round tie which United won 4-1. Harry Johnson, whose father had won Cup medals with United at the turn of the century, was a free-scoring player and one of a select band to have scored over 300 League goals. He played for United between 1919 and 1931 and won a FA Cup medal in 1925. When he left Bramall Lane he joined Mansfield Town and remained with them for a further five years before retiring. For United he scored 205 goals in 288 outings and 104 for Mansfield in 164 Third Division matches.
• 1930 Fred Watkin scored five goals for Port Vale in their 7-1 win over Rotherham United in a Third Division North match. This proved to be the red letter day of his career. In four seasons with Stoke he scored three goals in seven games and during the 1929-30 season with Vale he managed eight in thirteen.
• 1932 When Arsenal beat Huddersfield Town 6-0 in the FA Cup it was Town's first home defeat in the competition for 19 years.
• 1937 Five minutes from the end of a replayed Fifth Round FA Cup tie at White Hart Lane Everton were leading Tottenham Hotspur by 3-1. By the time the final whistle blew Spurs had won the tie 4-3 and there was no extra time.
• 1939 Wolverhampton Wanderers beat Everton 7-0 in Division One and the result led to a change in the laws of the game. At the time both sides were fighting for leadership of the division and both were in the FA Cup. After weeks of playing on hard grounds Wolves artificially watered their pitch for this match and this action was blamed for the freak result. At the annual meeting of the FA a few months later the watering of pitches was made illegal except during the months of November to February inclusive. For the record Everton did win the League but were knocked out of the FA Cup....by Wolves.
• 1956 The Division One match between Portsmouth and Newcastle at Fratton Park became the first League match to be played under floodlights. Newcastle won the match 2-0 with goals from Curry and Keeble.
• 1975 Arsenal's Alan Ball and Bob McNab were sent-off at Derby County. It's only the second time since the war that two players from the same team have been sent-off in a Football League match. The other was Arsenal's Frank McLintock and Peter Story in 1967.
• 1984 A new competition for Third and Fourth Division clubs was introduced; the Associate Members Cup. Attendances were disappointing.